[2.] The second use is moral, to make us hate sin. Oh, how care- fully should we abstain from all indulgence to the beginnings of it ! In mortifying sin, let us not weigh things in man's balance, but in God's, and not consider what is hateful to the world, but how things will appear before God's tribunal. There are sins majoris infamice and majoris reatus. Some sins procure their own shame in the world, but others argue a greater aversion of heart, and enmity to God and his people. Many of sin's martyrs, that aie publicly executed for the warning of others, are less hateful to God than others whom he hangeth up in chains of darkness as the instances of the slavery of sin, being wholly addicted to pleasures, profits, and honours.
3. It teacheth us that sin originally cometh from the heart and inner man ; for hatred is murder, that is, the seed of it ; and what would it produce were it not for the restraints of providence ? Mat. xviii. 19. How watchful should we be over our hearts ! Prov. iv. 23, ' Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life ; ' and over the first risings of sin there, that we may not give place to the devil, Eph. iv. 27. Judas had never betrayed his Lord if he had crushed covetousness in the egg ; many had never dipped their hands in blood, if they had smothered their envy and hatred as soon as it began to arise in them. It is wiser to keep from the first degrees, for by yielding to them we run into further degrees of sin. How humble should we be ! Oh, what monsters lurk in the heart of man ! Jer. xvii. 4, ' Wash thy heart from wickedness.' We would not think so if the word or experience did not discover it. What a foul stomach have they that vomit up nothing but knives, and daggers, and instruments of destruc- tion !
Use 2. Is to press us to beware of this sin, the hatred of our brother.
1. It is such a sin as is brought for one instance of the corruption and degeneration of human nature, Titus iii. 3. We are all hateful to God,
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and 5'et we hate one another, that one man is as a wolf to another, seeking to devour or undermine one another.
2. It is not such a sin as shall have its pardon of course, with our ordinary failings and frailties. No ; it is represented as one of the heinous transgressions of the law, 'murder ; ' such sins as are quite con- trary to the evangelical state : they have ' not eternal life abiding in them ; ' that is, life spiritual, which is eternal life begun : Gal. v. 21, ' They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God ; ' and Eph. v. 6, ' Let no man deceive you with vain words ; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedi- ence.' Those that impenitently live in them shall be eternally damned ; where they are harboured, they leave an incapacity upon us of entering into the kingdom of God till solemnly and expressly repented of.
3. It is a sin that is contrary to the evangelical temper, as well as to the evangelical state ; it is contrary to that meekness, patience, and forgiving one another, peaceableness, love, which is so frequently and expressly required of christians ; for Christianity is an art of loving God and his people : 1 Cor. xvi. 14, ' Let all your things be done with charity ; ' 1 Peter iv. 8, ' Above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves.' Love is the chief duty we owe both to God and our neighbour. Next to our love to our Lord Jesus Christ, love to his people ought to be studied above other things ; .therefore certainly they should keep free of malice and hatred one of another.
4. When you live in hatred one to another, you cannot offer any acceptable sacrifice to God. When Christ had discoursed concerning rash anger and opprobrious speeches to our brother, he saith, Mat. v. 23, 24, 'If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift ; ' and in his prayer. Mat. vi. 12, ' Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' Otherwise we cannot pray to the God of love witii any confidence : 1 Tim. ii. 8, ' I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.' It spoiletli our access to God, 1 Peter iii. 7.
5. Till you get rid of this distemper a man is strangely blinded and perverted in the course of his walking, all christian practice obstructed : 1 John ii. 11, ' But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes ; ' that is, he is more easily involved in sin and error, and raistaketh his way, or hath not a heart to walk in it. He wanted his true measures, love to God and his people, both which make him wise in spiritual things.